FORT PILLOW

“Only thing you know about whorehouses is your mama worked in one,” the Secesh soldier panted.

“Leastways I know who my mama is. She didn't leave me out fo' the hogs to eat,” Robinson said. “Or is you one o' them hogs your ownself?”

The Confederate stared at him with eyes and mouth open as comically wide as a surprised Negro's were said to be. Ben Robinson almost laughed, even though Forrest's cavalryman might kill him yet. The white never dreamt a man he wished he owned might have the nerve to talk back. Well, tough luck for him. Life gave you all kinds of things you never dreamt of. Anybody who'd been bought and sold could testify to that.

And the trooper stayed so surprised, Robinson's next lunge with the worm caught him in the pit of the stomach and folded him up like a lady's fan. Robinson wanted to finish him off. The artillery sergeant wished he had a weapon that could finish off the Reb. He looked around to see if someone had dropped a rifle musket.

Sure enough, several lay on the muddy ground. Robinson snatched one up, only to realize he would die quickly if he stayed where he was to fight with it. Sandy Cole and Charlie Key were still on their feet and fighting, but the rest of the gun crew was either down or fled. Confederates poured past them on either side. Here and there, knots of Union troops still struggled, whites and blacks battling side by side, color forgotten. But Bedford Forrest's men were over the rampart and inside the fort, and God only knew how the Federals were going to throw them out.

Nathan Bedford Forrest raised a polished brass spyglass to his eye to get a closer look at the fight for Fort Pillow. Distance fell away. As with everything else, he paid a price: the image was upside down. He was used to that, and it didn't faze him. The fringes of unnatural red and blue around the edges of things bothered him more.

“Lousy cheap thing,” he muttered. He'd had better telescopes, ones where the fringes weren't nearly so bad. But almost three years of constant travel left them water over the dam. He shrugged. This one, borrowed from a Confederate patriot in Jackson, showed.. enough.

He watched his men go down into the Yankees' foolish, useless ditch and then, only minutes later, scramble out on the far side. He watched his sharpshooters pick off two or three Federals who leaned across the earthwork or crawled out onto it so they could shoot down at the troopers in the ditch. He chuckled a little as he watched; in the spyglass's inverted image, the soldiers on top of the rampart looked as if they were about to fall off the edge of the world.

A moment later, he chuckled again, grimly. The homemade Yankees and runaway slaves inside Fort Pillow weren't really ready to fight, even if they thought they were. They could have made things much nastier for his men if they were bright enough to light the fuses on some shrapnel rounds and toss them over the rampart and down into the crowded ditch. The troopers trapped in there wouldn't have enjoyed that at all.

But neither Major Booth nor any of his officers had the brains to do it. The Federals didn't have long to think of such things, and now, with his own men into place right outside the rampart, it was too late. War didn't give you second chances.

Even across close to a quarter of a mile, the volley the Confederates fired into Fort Pillow sounded like a thunderclap. It must have hit the defenders the same way. Bedford Forrest was sure of that, even if he couldn't see into the fort. That wasn't the sorry spyglass's fault. Several hundred rifle muskets and pistols going off at once didn't just make a thunderclap. They also made the cloud from which it might have sprung. His troopers vanished into that cloud as they swarmed over the rampart and into the fort.

More shots rang out, these spaced far enough apart to be heard individually, not just as part of a greater roar. Through the gunfire, Rebel yells and other cries and the screams of wounded men rang out. “If we get in, them bluebellies is dead meat,” said a soldier near the general, pausing for a moment as he reloaded.

“That's about the size of it, Reuben.” Forrest nodded. “And I'll tell you something else, too-we're going to get in.”

“Well, hell, yes.” Reuben had no doubt in his mind.

Neither did Bedford Forrest, not really. He made hand-washing motions, feeling like Pontius Pilate again. Well too bad, he thought. If the Federals didn't have the brains to quit when he gave them the chance, weren't they asking to get crucified? He nodded again. They were, and his troopers would give them what they asked for.

“Come on, men! We can do it!” Major Bradford shouted. He heard other officers and sergeants in blue yelling the same thing. He really believed it. They'd fought so well for so long. Bad luck Major Booth stopped a bullet, but even so…